Historically, Internet services, telephone services, and television programming services have been provided by different service providers. The revenue model of each of these service providers was service specific.
With the increasing use of digital technologies to provide telephone, high speed data and television programming services, the distinctions between the services have blurred. For example, a cable system operator may provide all three services over a largely digital pipe.
A major source of revenue for cable system operators is the sale of television advertising time, both locally and nationally. The price of an advertisement slot is based on the popularity of the programming in which that slot is provided.
Advertisers have typically attempted to maximize the return on their advertising investment by targeting specific viewer segments that are likely to be most receptive to the commercial message embodied in the advertisements. One of the most widespread and simplest ways of targeting viewers involves identifying what types of viewers most commonly view specific television programs. For example, it may be found that sports programming is viewed by a segment of the population that includes a large group of persons who are likely to purchase automobiles. In another example, it may be found that a news program is viewed most frequently by persons who are more interested in investment services than the public at large.
Advertisers offering goods or services that coincide with the interests of the viewers of a particular program are usually willing to pay a premium for advertising time associated with that program. Accordingly, broadcasters have a financial incentive to provide programming that is easily associated with specific segments of the viewing population and to facilitate the identification of the profiles of viewers.
Another method of targeting specific viewing audiences involves selecting advertisements according to the geographical region in which they are to be broadcast. Frequently, viewers in one local or regional area may be more likely to be receptive to an advertiser's message than viewers in a different area. For example, some advertisements are presented by businesses operating in a limited geographical area. Accordingly, advertising success and the advertising revenues received by broadcasters can be maximized when different advertisements may be broadcast to different geographical areas.
However, even with the widespread practice of targeting viewers based on television programming content and the practice of geographically differentiating advertisements, viewers who are likely to be disinterested in the goods or services offered by advertisers unavoidably constitute a large percentage of the viewing population. For example, even though it may be found that viewers of sports programming are collectively more likely to purchase automobiles, a large number of individual viewers in this segment of the viewing population simply are not interested in such purchases. Likewise, while viewers of news programs may be more interested as a whole in investment services than the general public, a large number of such viewers belong to age or economic segments of the population that traditionally do not make use of investment services. In view of these and many other examples, conventional methods and systems for targeting advertisements to specific groups of viewers are inefficient.
Profiling viewers based on viewing habits may improve the likelihood that a viewer is interested in a particular product or service. However, viewing data alone may not be the best indicator of a viewer's current interests or needs.
The cable industry is rapidly embracing “cross-platform services.” A cross-platform service utilizes a feature provided on one platform (such as voice) to offer a feature on another platform (such as video). Thus, displaying caller ID information on a video display is a cross-platform service—a voice element crossed to a video service. Another example is the programming of a DVR via a web page—a data element crossed to a video service.
Providing data, voice and video services to subscribers has its challenges. For example, billing systems must accommodate differing revenue models and customer services departments must be trained to handle customer support issues across a wide range of devices. However, the provision of services over differing platforms also provides a cable system operator with a wealth of information regarding the interests of subscribers. In an embodiment, subscriber viewing data is correlated with Internet browsing data and/or telephone calling data to produce a subscriber account profile that is used to select advertisements targeted to devices associated with a subscriber account. In another embodiment, e-mail configuration data is used to refine the subscriber account profile to create user profiles.